This Is My World Now
by damedeleslac
Summary: Some times things change, and you learn how to like with it.  Part of the Where were you when the world was Ending? Series .
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: All characters, etc belong to their respective creators, etc. I am only playing.

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Where Were You When The World Was Ending?

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Four

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Quinn Fabray

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This Is My World Now.

_(And I Live In It)_

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><p>.<p>

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Quinn ran into the alley, dropped to the ground, and folded in on herself - trying to make herself smaller; to hide in the dust and, the dirt, to fade into the bricks that squeezed her from two sides.

She stuffed her last clean bit of rag into her mouth, desperate not to keep smelling or tasting the only warning anyone got.

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_You could only use the rags once. The smell of maggots and rot and mould and bloody raw meat stayed on the fabric even after being washed. You had to burn them to be free of it._

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Quinn made herself breathe slowly. Long steady ins and outs of air.

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_Make yourself small, make yourself quiet, and if you're really lucky They won't hear you. If you're only lucky you'll be dead before They start eating you._

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She could hear them moving about, a pack hunting for its food. They were almost silent, unless you knew what to listen for. Most people didn't live that long

Quinn slowly turned the lid on the bottle. The vinegar made her nose itch, and she almost sneezed, but it would help hide her for a bit longer.

Bleach worked best, it confused whatever sense of smell They had left. But bleach was needed for other things. And vinegar was easier to find, easier to make and easier to carry.

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She stayed in the space for hours.

The main pack might pass through an area quickly, but there were usually stragglers.

Quinn kept her eyes squeezed shut, breathing through her mouth and letting the vinegar tickle her nose. In her head she sung all the songs she'd sung in Glee Club.

Her hands gripped her legs almost tight enough to bruise, stopping herself from tapping out the music that went with the lyrics in her head.

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Quinn stood, carefully stretching complaining muscles, taking a different route back to the supplies she'd dropped. Two of the cans had rolled to the side of the road. Quinn ignored them, repacking the other items into the bag and splashing vinegar on the spot, letting it soak into the souls of her shoes.

"_The roundabout way back to the school_," She decided, "_Through a couple of dry cleaners._"

Where the chemicals would obliterate her scent.

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It's twilight before she can get back the school, using the drainage entrance to get back in.

Rachel stood behind a complicated series of gates and barricades. She held up a beer bottle with a rag stuffed into the neck and a lighter.

"Do I need to use this?"

"Is Puck back?" Quinn countered.

"No," Rachel can't seem to look at her as she opens the gate system, "Maybe tomorrow?"

"Maybe"

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They made another mark on the wall by the first gate, adding all of the marks up in their heads.

64 days since Puck left.

61 days since the TV and the radios had stopped broadcasting.

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"Did we manage any hot water today?"

Rachel smiled.

"Finn and Tina cleared out a house and torched it. It should hide the smell of our fires for a couple of days."

"They're going to run out of houses one day."

Rachel shrugged, a gesture that seemed small and defeated, despite the shape of her mouth.

"One day."

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Quinn stopped by the classroom where someone had taped a sheet of paper to the door. _Artie's Office_ it read.

"There was a pack on Oakley." She told him.

Artie rolled over to one of the maps stuck on the wall, picking a pin out from a jar of them. "Street or terrace?"

"Avenue, heading towards Miller Lane." She pulled a box of condoms out of the bag and threw them on the desk, "Don't be greedy."

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67 days ago Quinn had never taken a bath in water someone else had already used.

Never washed her hair with generic brand shampoo.

Never used soap that smelled how her laundry did 68 days ago.

Now it was a relief to get wet, smear soap everywhere, rinse off and then soak until her skin started to shrivel.

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"Heaven," Quinn said out loud, feeling the need to speak after a day of being silent "Must be a clean, full size bath tub and plumbing and hot water."

"The taps downstairs," Mercedes, carrying a bucket of steaming water, startled her, "But it's clean. And it's really damn hot, so shift your feet before I pour it in."

"Where's Brittany?" Quinn asked, using her hands to move the warmer water around the tub, "She wasn't with Artie."

"They gave up trying to build a flame thrower," Mercedes rolled her eyes.

They being Brittany, Satana, Kurt's Dad and Mr Schuester.

"Thank g-"

"Now they're thinking about crossbows and flaming arrows."

Quinn laughed for the first time in weeks.

"I think I don't want to know."

"That's what Miss Pillsbury said after they convinced her to unlock the library so they could look for books on crossbows."

"Did she lock herself back in after they left?"

"Yeah." Mercedes sighed, "You get anything good today?"

"A pumpkin, some onions and a bag of skittles. Kurt and Finn's Mum said something about making soup."

"I miss hamburgers. And apples, and milk." Mercedes mourned.

"I thought I heard a generator today. I can check if the freezer's working, if you want?"

"Don't worry about it." Mercedes back tracked, trying to hide a shudder.

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The last working freezer they'd found had contained a baby, a toddler and a pre-schooler. There'd been a note stuck to the lid with a 'World's Best Mother' magnet.

Quinn hadn't read it.

Rachel had. She'd started making Molotov Cocktails soon afterwards.

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Quinn slid under the water, praying that the day never came when she'd have to be that strong, that scared or that crazy.

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Quinn went up to the roof to eat her soup. She had ten Skittles, two of each flavour for dessert.

Up there in the darkness, among the pots, potting mix and the hope of green growing things, you could almost imagine that nothing had ever happened.

_Like it was just some weird camping trip._

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To the right a house was smouldering.

Left was where Puck had headed, looking for his Mum and little sister. And the baby.

"Beth." Quinn told the darkness.

She snapped the plastic spoon a moment later as someone or something's scream was cut short.

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One day, some day that would probably be her.

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Quinn looked up at the sky.

67 days ago she'd never seen so many stars in the sky in one place before.

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End.

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><p><strong>Tim Minchin <strong>  
>Not Perfect<p>

This is my Earth  
>And I live in it<br>It's one third dirt  
>And two thirds water<br>And it rotates and revolves through space  
>At rather an impressive pace<br>And never even messes up my hair  
>And here's the really weird thing<br>The force created by its spin  
>Is the force that stops the chaos flooding in<p>

This is my Earth  
>And it's fine<br>It's where I spend the vast majority of my time  
>It's not perfect<br>But it's mine  
>It's not perfect<p>

This is my country  
>And I live in it<br>It's pretty big  
>And nice to walk on And the bloke who runs my country<br>Has built a demagoguery  
>And tought us to be fearful and boring<br>And the wierdest thing is that he is  
>Conservative of politics<br>But really rather radical of eyebrow

This is my country  
>And it's fine<br>It's where I spend the vast majority of my time  
>It's not perfect<br>But it's mine  
>It's not perfect<p>

This is my house  
>And I live in it<br>It's made of cracks  
>And photographs<br>We rent it off a guy who bought it from a guy  
>Who bought it from a guy<br>Whose grandad left it to him  
>And the weirdest thing is that this house<br>Has locks to keep the baddies out  
>But they're mostly used to lock ourselves in<p>

This is my house  
>And it's fine<br>It's where I spend the vast majority of my time  
>It's not perfect<br>But it's mine  
>It's not perfect<br>But it's mine

This is my body  
>And I live in it<br>It's 31  
>And 6 months old<br>It's changed a lot since it was new  
>It's done stuff it wasn't built to do<br>I often try to fill it up with wine  
>And the weirdest thing about it is<br>I spend so much time hating it  
>But it never says a bad word about me<p>

This is my body  
>And it's fine<br>It's where I spend the vast majority of my time  
>It's not perfect<br>But it's mine  
>It's not perfect<p>

This is my brain  
>And I live in it<br>It's made of love  
>And bad song lyrics<br>It's tucked away behind my eyes  
>Where all my screwed up thoughts can hide<br>Cos God forbid I hurt somebody  
>And the weirdest thing about a mind<br>Is that every answer that you find  
>Is the basis of a brand new cliché<p>

This is my brain  
>And it's fine<br>It's where I spend the vast majority of my time  
>It's not perfect<br>But it's mine  
>It's not perfect<br>I'm not quite sure I've worked out how to work it  
>It's not perfect<br>But it's mine

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><p>AN: Thank you to all my fabulous, under appreciated beta's.

Also, this is my _zombie apocalypse fic_.

The zombies are a mix of the 28 Days Later zombies, Reavers and a pack hunting animal.

Mostly I wanted to show a different side to Quinn.

It might seem like she's just _surviving_, but she hasn't developed an obsession with fire, she still has a bit of a sense of humour and she still takes the time to look up at the stars.


	2. Chapter 2

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Disclaimer: All characters, etc belong to their respective creators, etc. I am only playing.

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><p>.<p>

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Where Were You When The World Was Ending?

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Four

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Rachel Berry

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This Is My World Now.

_(And I Live In It)_

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><p><em>.<em>

_We'll be the Burning One._

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There's safety in fire.

In fire and alcohol and fragile glass bottles and strips of old fabric and boxes of little sticks that spark and ignite.

_They don't like fire anymore than they like the smell of bleach and vinegar._

But it's the fire that Rachel clings to.

That mother, the one who'd put her children into the freezer, had thought she'd been being kind. Giving her daughters and son the easy, easier way out.

Rachel would prefer to burn.

To go out in an agony of her own making, screaming and defiant.

_They don't like cooked meat. Only raw, preferably with the heart still beating._

So Rachel sits in her room; one of the old chemistry labs, filling bottles with alcohol or gasoline or any other flammable liquid she can convince the others to get her and stuffing their necks with rags.

The bottles fill the shelves, the tables and the floor.

Except for a small path, from the door to where she sleeps.

And hoards matches under her pillows.

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><p>.<p>

Dave Matthews Band - When The World Ends (Oakenfold Remix) Lyrics

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When the world ends  
>Collect your things<br>You're coming with me  
>When the world ends<br>You tuckle up yourself with me  
>Watch it as the stars disappear to nothing<br>The day the world is over  
>We'll be lying in bed<p>

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I'm gonna rock you like a baby when the cities fall  
>We will rise as the building's crumble<br>Float there and watch it all  
>Amidst the burning, we'll be churning<br>You know, love will be our wings  
>The passion rises up from the ashes<br>When the world ends

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When the world ends  
>You're gonna come with me<br>We're going to be crazy  
>Like a river bends<br>We're going to float  
>Through the criss cross of the mountains<br>Watch them fade to nothing  
>When the world ends<br>You know that's what's happening now  
>I'm going to be there with you somehow, oh...<p>

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I'm going to tie you up like a baby in a carriage car  
>Your legs won't work cause you want me so<br>You just lie spread to the wall  
>The love you got is surely<br>All the love that I would ever need  
>I'm going to take you by my side<br>And love you tall, 'til the world ends

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Oh, but don't you worry about a thing  
>No, 'cause I got you here with me<br>Don't you worry about a  
>Just you and me<br>Floating through the empty, empty  
>Just you and me<br>Oh, graces  
>Oh, grace<p>

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Oh, when the world ends  
>We'll be burning one<br>When the world ends  
>We'll be sweet makin love<br>Oh, you know when the world ends  
>I'm going to take you aside and say<br>Let's watch it fade away, fade away  
>And the world's done<br>Ours just begun  
>It's done<br>Ours just begun

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We're gonna dive into the emptiness  
>We'll be swimming<br>I'm going to walk you through the pathless roads  
>I'm going to take you to the top of the mountain that's no longer there<br>I'm going to take you to bed and love you, I swear  
>Like the end is here<p>

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I'm going to take you up to  
>I'm going to take you down on you<br>I'm going to hold you like an angel, angel

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I'm going to love you  
>I'm going to love you<br>When the world ends  
>I'm going to hold you<br>When the world is over  
>We'll just be beginning...<p>

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><p>.<p>

AN: So... I wrote this after watching way too much of The Walking Dead

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